Homo Ludens

"It was written in 1938, and it’s a study of what the author calls the ‘play element of culture’. So really it’s another book about the way that play precedes culture, and is a distinct and very complicated human phenomenon. The author sees play as something that has many interlocking facets, and that has given rise to much that we think of as civilisation: something that encodes a crucial set of human values, ideas and ways of being in the world. As he points out, all animals play; play is a bigger thing than mere culture, and an important counterbalance to those ‘serious’ elements we sometimes seek to reduce life into: the Darwinian business of work and struggle. A lot of people say play isn’t ‘real’ or ‘serious’ and mean this as a critique. But that’s the point of it – that human reality is richer and stranger than the animal business of survival."